Content creation can be a daunting and laborious task. And it’s not just the actual act of writing an article, or designing a slideshow. But also the planning, research, and collaboration. If you work in a large company, or agency, this challenge is amplified 10-fold.

So how do we keep our content creation organized, and remain productive (other than beer and coffee)? I decided to ask some content marketing experts to tell us their process, including the tools they use. Here’s how the experts streamline their content creation process:                                                                  

Keep a Brainstorming Google Doc and Evernote

At Search Engine Journal, we use EditFlow plugin on WordPress and Podio for the biggest projects. For my personal clients and content ideas, I have a brainstorming Google document and Evernote, depending on what I usually most work in with that particular client. To network and keep track of work with colleagues, I use Skype chat and Google Hangouts a lot, and at Search Engine Journal, we have a standing one hour conference call to cover any editorial news and projects. This helps keeps up on track. I also love using ToDoist to keep track of my own to-dos.          

Track Topics with Mention and Pull Ideas Into Evernote

I track specific phrases and topics with Mention, and use Zapier to pull that into organized Evernote notes. From there, I review and create category breakdowns in our brainstorming spreadsheet, where I research similar posts and how well they performed (social metrics, organic metrics).

I use Buzzsumo during the social metrics and research portion for content, publishers and influencers, and Majestic SEO to pull backlinks/domain count. After that, I plan specific topics under each category and get pretty granular with what I’d like to include, other posts to reference, etc. I also look through my outreach research, relationships, etc during all of the aforementioned stages to see if there’s a potential partnership or collaboration opportunity that’ll be beneficial for both myself and an author/blogger/publisher. That’s a whole ‘nother beast though 

I also plan out what kinds of assets I may need to design up (social assets) to assist in social promotion around that piece. The process around this varies depending on the client.

I’m testing out CoSchedule right now, which seems to be great for tying in content planning with your social editorial calendar. I can’t vouch for it 100% as I haven’t used it enough yet, but if you’re interested in checking it out: http://coschedule.com/

The Editorial Calendar plugin for WordPress has always been my go-to for planning out content.

I brainstorm once monthly with clients (or my own internal team) to plan for the following month. I never plan further than a quarter except for if we’re supporting a feature launch, focusing around a promotion/holiday, or extending a post with multiple parts or guides. This keeps us lean enough to adapt ideas.        

Use 1 Tool (Asana) For Everything

As Paul Graham once said, “An obstacle downstream propagates upstream.” Create too much friction and you’ll stop having good ideas. For us, this friction was being caused by spreading out the planning process into a ton of apps. We now use Asana for everything.

We have profiles for each person involved (including our part-time editor) so that it’s easy to add to-do’s that keep everyone informed. The calendar feature shows how everything will be playing out over the coming months, making the somewhat scatterbrained job of a content creator a little more strategic.

We also have a folder called “Blog Pitches” where you can dump any idea you want with a short description — it’s a free for all in there, but in a good way. There are other folders for pieces that have made progress: things like “To be written” (once it’s approved) and “To be edited” (once the first draft is done). The one exception is outreach, which we prefer to keep track of in tools like Evernote; we have a separate content marketing notebook for anything too big to deal with in Asana.

Last but not least we have a quick “What are you doing this week?” meeting on Monday for 15 mins, and a one-on-one content call with our VP of Marketing and myself every Friday. HipChat and other tools are used to communicate throughout the week.